Historic Structures - Urban Exploration of Historic Properties

St. Charles Borromeo Roman Catholic Parish Complex, Detroit Michigan

St. Charles Borromeo Roman Catholic Parish Complex, Detroit Michigan

The St. Charles Parish complex was the focal point of a late nineteenth and early twentieth century Belgian community, and a well preserved example of an early twentieth century Catholic parish complex of three buildings anchored by a lavishly detailed parish church which is the last work of one of Detroit's leading architects of Catholic churches of the time. The history of the parish goes back as far as 1808, when an agreement of sale was reached between Francois Paul Malcher, owner of Private Claim 16, and Louis Beaufait, Joseph St. Pere St. Jean, Benoit Chapoton, and Francis and Charles Rivard, as representatives (trustees) for the Catholics in the Cote du Nord-Est territory (the northeast coast territory now constitutes most of

Colorado Sanitary Canning Factory, Brighton Colorado

Colorado Sanitary Canning Factory, Brighton Colorado

In 1908 Brighton was the county seat and most populous town of Adams County, located in an agricultural area of the county near the Weld County line. The town boasted a number of food processing facilities in the early twentieth century, including the Kuner Pickle Company, Brighton Creamery, Northern Colorado Dairy Company (cheese factory), O.E. Frink's cheese factory, Key's Syrup factory, Brighton Mill and Mercantile Company (feed mill and elevator), and H. Claussen Feed Mill. The Colorado Sanitary Canning Company is the only extant building once used for canning in Brighton. The Wilmore Canning Company of Denver initially planned to erect a canning factory in Brighton. John T. Wilmore, S.S. Kirkpatrick, and E.E. Boyce incorporated the firm in 1903 and operated

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church, Detroit Michigan

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church, Detroit Michigan

The Assumption Grotto Church Complex consists of a well-preserved nineteenth-century grotto structure and early twentieth-century church. The Grotto of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lourdes is an early example of the many Catholic grotto structures built in Michigan and the United States in emulation of the famous grotto at Lourdes. Constructed in 1881-83 (with further refinements added over the next few years) at the instigation of the parish priest, Rev. Amandus Vandendriessche, who had visited Lourdes in 1876, the grotto is an early and innovative work of Detroit architect Peter Dederichs, Jr., the earliest known Michigan architect who specialized in the design of Catholic churches and institutional buildings. The late 1920s Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is

Central Furniture Company-H.E. Shaw Furniture Factory, Grand Rapids Michigan

Central Furniture Company-H.E. Shaw Furniture Factory, Grand Rapids Michigan

The Central Furniture Company and its successors represent the medium-sized furniture companies that consistently produced moderately priced household furniture for the rising middle class during the peak years of the Grand Rapids residential furniture industry. The companies located here produced household furniture for forty years. While a small number of firms were leaders in the Grand Rapids furniture industry at any given time, the medium-sized companies such as the succession of firms that occupied this complex were the backbone of the city's furniture industry. Following the demise of the H. E. Shaw Furniture Company, the last of the successor firms to Central Furniture which had begun development of the complex, the complex continued to be associated with the city's furniture industry

Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Atlanta Georgia

Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Atlanta Georgia

The Sacred Heart of Jesus designed by one of the most notable southern architects of the early twentieth century is not only important for its unusually innovative revival architecture and the artistry of its stained glass windows and wall paintings, but also has been a religious and educational center for the Catholic community of Atlanta. The first Catholic church in Atlanta was what is now the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (1869). The first daughter parish of the Immaculate Conception was that of Saints Peter and Paul (1880) on the corners of Marietta and Alexander Streets, N.W. It functioned for sixteen years until the Fathers of the Society of Mary came to Atlanta and established the parish of the Sacred Heart

F.N. Burt Company Factory, Buffalo New York

F.N. Burt Company Factory, Buffalo New York

This site was the headquarters of the F.N. Burt Company, a successful box manufacturer that contributed to the dense, mixed use character of the Hydraulics/Larkin Neighborhood, the city's earliest manufacturing district dating from the 1820s. The construction of the F.N. Burt facility in 1901 coincided with the redirection of the neighborhood economy after the Hydraulic Canal was filled in. As railroad transportation reshaped manufacturing networks, opportunistic companies located in the Hydraulics/Larkin district to benefit from the proximate juncture of rail lines and clustering of various local enterprises. The F.N. Burt Company located on Seneca Street, a major thoroughfare of the neighborhood, as it shifted from printing to box making, an endeavor well positioned between rail lines and consumer markets. F.N. Burt

First Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Atlanta Georgia

First Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Atlanta Georgia

The First Methodist Episcopal Church, South is an excellent example of the Gothic Revival style in the Atlanta metro-area. Designed by a leading Atlanta architect, Willis F. Denny, the church was constructed in 1903 on land that the congregation purchased just north of the downtown Atlanta business district. The diversity of the Gothic style is reflected in the pointed-arch entryways, arched stained-glass windows, blind arcade above the central entryway, lancet windows, quatrefoils, pinnacles, and wall buttresses. Interior features include pews, doors, sconces, and chandeliers with trefoil and quatrefoil motifs and a Gothic-arched ceiling. The architect, Willis F. Denny, was a leading architect in Atlanta before his untimely death in 1905. In addition to this church, which many consider to be his

Grace Episcopal Church, Trenton North Carolina

Grace Episcopal Church, Trenton North Carolina

In May, 1885, the Reverend Israel Harding of St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Kinston, reported that he had officiated at two services in Trenton North Carolina, and that there is a good prospect of building a church there. According to church records, the first of these services was held with four or five communicants on March 28^th, 1885. In a remarkably short time, less than two months, the nucleus of a congregation was formed and a lot for the building of a church provided. L. P. Brogden and his wife, Laura, deeded part of town lot 5 to Bishop A. A. Watson and trustees, on May 18^th, 1885. Bishop Watson laid the cornerstone of the church within a week of the transaction.

Blue Bell Factory Building, Columbia City Indiana

Blue Bell Factory Building, Columbia City Indiana

The Blue Bell, Inc. Factory Building is located at 307 South Whitley Street in Columbia City, Indiana. For more than 40 years, it was the local manufacturing facility for Blue Bell, Inc., a nationally important clothing manufacturing company from the 1920s until 1986, when the company was acquired by VF Corporation. The Blue Bell, Inc. Factory Building was built in 1932 (with a 1935 addition) by a predecessor work-clothing company to Blue Bell, the Globe Superior Corporation, which was acquired by Blue Bell four years later in 1936. The Blue Bell, Inc. Factory Building was the local (Columbia City) facility for a company that had $53 million in sales in 1953 and 28 factories throughout the United States by 1955, making

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Snow Hill North Carolina

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Snow Hill North Carolina

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church is a modest, example of the Carpenter Gothic style popular for small churches in the mid and late-nineteenth century. The impact of Richard Upjohn's Rural Architecture shaped the design of churches, especially Episcopal, for nearly a half-century, providing the impetus for buildings of stylish form, which contrast with their characteristically simple contemporaries. A few Episcopal churches of this type survive in southeastern North Carolina. These represent the full-blown introduction of pattern book architectural styles, particularly the Gothic, into the rural and small-town communities of the region. Grace Church, Jones County is especially notable and shares with St. Barnabas the use of an arcaded upper cornice linking the battens of the board and batten walls, a subtle technique

Stebbins and Roberts Office Building and Factory, Little Rock Arkansas

Stebbins and Roberts Office Building and Factory, Little Rock Arkansas

The Stebbins & Roberts Office Building and Factory was the main office and factory of a locally important manufacturer and distributor of high-quality paints and related products. The company had a presence in Little Rock and the surrounding region for over fifty years, and their products were used in high-profile commissions. The building was the work of prominent Arkansas architects H. Ray Burks and Bruce Roy Anderson. Prior to construction, the site was vacant, and the surrounding area contained several industrial concerns and multiple arms of the Missouri Pacific and Rock Island railroad lines. The office wing and factory were constructed in 1947 to house a local paint company, Stebbins and Roberts. At that time, the office wing contained general offices,

Depew High School, Depew New York

Depew High School, Depew New York

The former Depew High School was originally constructed in 1914 and significantly expanded in 1927, was designed in accordance with state and national regulations of school design that stemmed primarily from concerns for student safety. In response to school fires and scientific theories pertaining to health, bodies like the New York State Department of Education codified regulations for light, ventilation, heating, and fire safety. In 1904, New York became the first state to mandate a review of school plans. It also required a minimum of 30 cubic feet of air exchange per student per minute, and in 1916, it required that school buildings with more than six classrooms include an auditorium. Within the next decade, school architects enclosed open stairwells and

Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist Church and Community House, Baltimore Maryland

Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist Church and Community House, Baltimore Maryland

The Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist Church congregation is one of the oldest in the city, organized in 1787, and was highly influential in the freedom movement during the Civil War, the establishment of the first black school in Baltimore after the abolition of slavery and the movement to foster the institution of the black church. The 1898 building represents the church following the migration of its members within Baltimore in the late nineteenth century. The structure itself as an intact example of the Gothic Revival style of architecture that was commonly used for churches primarily in urban areas at the turn of the century. The distinctive features embodied in Sharp Street Memorial are a massively proportioned masonry structure with sharply

Davidson Elementary School, Kings Mountain North Carolina

Davidson Elementary School, Kings Mountain North Carolina

Davidson Elementary School, a small well-preserved, one-story, six-classroom 1950s-era Modern Movement building on residual grounds of about four acres, occupies a singular place in the history of Kings Mountain. Designed by James Lorn Beam Jr., a Cherryville, North Carolina, architect in 1953, constructed in 1953-1954 by Frank Dewey McCall and Company of Drexel, North Carolina, and placed in service on 29^th November 1954. Davidson Elementary School was the last built of three buildings known to have been constructed in the twentieth century for black public education in Kings Mountain and the only one of the three to survive. Following on the pioneering local efforts of black churches and their ministers to provide rudimentary schooling for black children in the community, a

Middle Island Lighthouse, Alpena Michigan

Middle Island Lighthouse, Alpena Michigan

Middle Island Lighthouse resulted from the efforts of the federal government to provide an integrated system of navigational aids throughout the United States and to provide for safe maritime transport in Lake Huron and throughout the Great Lakes. The construction of a permanent lighthouse on Middle Island was the final stage of a system of lights along the northeastern shore of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. It provided a light signal for the hazardous area between Presque Isle to the north and Thunder Bay Island to the south. The lighthouse on Middle Island remains in its original location. Its basic architectural design is unaltered from when it was built, although the daymark has been altered through time. The lighthouse has been separated from

Corunna High School, Corunna Michigan

Corunna High School, Corunna Michigan

The Corunna High School is the oldest remaining school building in the city of Corunna, Michigan. It housed all of Corunna's public school students, kindergarten through high school, from its completion in 1909 until 1952, when a new high school was built, and remained in use as a public school until 1976. It is one of the few known remaining public school buildings designed by prominent Lansing architect Edwyn A. Bowd, who designed many of Lansing's leading buildings from the 1890s to the 1930s. In 1836 the Shiawassee County Seat Company sent their agent, Captain John Davids, to purchase a large tract of then densely forested land in Shiawassee County situated along the banks of the Shiawassee River. The company intended

Plum Island Light Station, Orient Point New York

Plum Island Light Station, Orient Point New York

The Plum Island Light Station is part of the system of aids to navigation through the eastern entrances to Long Island Sound built by the federal government from 1806 to 1899 and remains active today. This system of lighthouses had regional significance aiding the coastal trade of New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. The Plum Island Lighthouse was built 1869 and remained a manned station until it was deactivated in 1978 and replaced with a steel tower. Plum Island, Great Gull Island, Little Gull Island and Fisher's Island extend in a line from Orient Point on Long Island's North Fork across to Watch Hill, Rhode Island. This line of islands is the eastern terminus of Long Island Sound and the

W. H. Norton House, Columbus Montana

W. H. Norton House, Columbus Montana

When the north side of the Yellowstone River adjacent to the Crow Indian Reservation was reopened for white settlement in 1888, W. H. Norton filed a homestead claim on 160 acres which later became the site of the town of Columbus, Montana. Due to Norton's extensive business and political involvement in the early development of Columbus, he has achieved widely recognized local historical significance. The W. H. Norton House, built in 1899, stands at the northwest corner of the Stillwater County Courthouse block. Prior to settling his homestead claim along the Yellowstone River, W. H. Norton pursued a number of diverse occupations with little lasting success. Norton ventured out to Montana Territory after serving as a Union soldier in the Civil

Calkins School - Cortez High School, Cortez Colorado

Calkins School - Cortez High School, Cortez Colorado

Cortez High School was the only public school (kindergarten - 12^th grade) serving the city of Cortez from 1909 to 1949. It continued to function as an elementary and middle school until 1968. Over this sixty-year period (1909-1968) every public school student in Cortez attended the school. The construction of the school in three phases (1909, 1924, 1935) reflects the growing population of the community, as well as targeted periods of public investment in education in Montezuma County. The physical evolution of Cortez High School from its initial construction in 1909 through two expansions in 1924 and 1935 demonstrates the state of education in Colorado as the building evolved from a ward school to a Progressive Era school. The Cortez High

Poe Reef Light Station, Benton Township Michigan

Poe Reef Light Station, Benton Township Michigan

Poe Reef Light Station marks the dangerous Poe Reef in the Straits of Mackinaw, a route used by ships passing between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. Since the mid-nineteenth century, the Great Lakes have served as a major transportation corridor for commercial traffic. As early as 1852, over 4 million tons of goods crossed the Great Lakes, largely consisting of lumber and grain. By 1910, the amount of goods shipped increased to 80 million tons, mainly iron ore and coal. In 1915, limestone emerged as an important bulk commodity in the region. Shipped freight tonnage reached a record of 217 million tons in 1948. Poe Reef Light Station has been an integral part of successful commerce and safe travel across the

Book Title Lost Places: Images of Bygone America

Lost Places: Images of Bygone America

Book Title Abandoned America: Dismantling The Dream

Abandoned America: Dismantling The Dream

Book Title Abandoned Train Stations: Rail Stations, Yards, Signalboxes and Tracks that the World Left Behind

Abandoned Train Stations: Rail Stations, Yards, Signalboxes and Tracks that the World Left Behind

Book Title Abandoned: Hauntingly Beautiful Deserted Theme Parks

Abandoned: Hauntingly Beautiful Deserted Theme Parks

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